The Captain`s Vengeance

downwards in the blink of an eye, but that was blocked by Lewrie's right shoulder against his forearm, and Lewrie rammed the point of his hanger deep into Lanxade's stomach, no longer protected by canvas, whale-bone, or lacings, right through the gap he'd made with his slash; deep as he could, the whole length of the honed back-blade savagely twisted to ease its withdrawal. Lanxade tried to bring his own rapier back far enough to stab, but Lewrie took hold of his wrist, feeling the man's oar-stout strength going.

Lewrie looked into his eyes, glaring utter hatred, getting the same hatred back. 'Fuck with my sailors, will you? My prize you took… my men you almost murdered! My Midshipman you gut-shot and left to die, you… miserable… bastard!' Lewrie raged, almost in his ear. 'Now die, and roast in the fires of Hell!'

Lewrie stood back, jerked Lanxade back on his feet as he tugged his bloody hanger free, then jammed it up under Lanxade's jaw, through soft tissue and tongue, into his brain!

Lanxade jerked and jiggled like a dancing marionette at a Punch Judy show, his rapier clanging on the deck as it dropped from nerveless fingers, then he was falling backwards over the taff-rails, arms, legs, and coat jerkily windmilling as Lewrie shoved him over-side, to create a cannonball's splash as he plunged deep under. Lewrie peered down over the schooner's transom to see Lanxade surface once, strangling but incapable of movement, before he went under again, to sink slowly, lifeless eyes almost yearning for air, and the light.

Drowned, a last thought in the final dark: I died rich, hein? Lewrie spun about, sagged against the taff-rails, and peered up at the French Tricolour which still flew aloft. 'Get that damned rag down, someone,' he croaked, dry-mouthed and desperately weary. Cox'n Andrews came to his side with a leather bottle of brandy, and a suck or two at that helped. He was leery of the round-eyed awe his sailors showed him, but hoped that awe cancelled out his previous lost respect ashore.

'Been below, sor,' Toby Jugg reported. 'They's kegged silver in th' hold, not too much, though. Pris'ners say th' bulk o' h'it woz on their prize, still.'

They looked West. The pirate's prize was now a half-sunk hulk, a bowl of sullen flames beneath a monstrous volcano's pillar of smoke, adrift and almost beached. Even as they watched, the fire reached the unpillaged powder magazines, its kegs and sewn cartridges at last. She exploded with a dull roar, a staggering series of blasts that shot flaming debris and fingery smoke trails up and outwards, each bigger than the rest. And with each explosion came a glittering in the sky like the coloured embers of a fireworks display; tiny, silvery bits that glinted as they spiralled out over a half-mile radius, all new-minted and mirror-like in the rising sun.

'Oh!' Lewrie lamented. 'Ooh!' went his sailors. 'Aw, shit!'

'Boy, you get in your brother's boat,' Balfa ordered after they met up with the grim-faced Pierre in a small gig by himself. 'You an' him row like Hell one way, we go dat way, dey don't cotch us all in de one bite, hein?' Balfa still had two loaded pistols in his belt, but Pierre only had one, and all the rest had been soaked useless in their swim. Bad as things looked, hard as it was to see old Jerome meet a hard end as they rowed past to the west of the fight, his neighbours still had his hillock of silver, and the fewer greedy survivors of this day, the better; especially those quick-witted La Fitte brothers.

'Row where?' Pierre snarled. 'We don't know the way through…'

'Away from dis' Balfa mirthlessly hooted. 'Due north, get in Lake Barataria, skirt de shore, de bayou take you free, you stay wit' de wide channel. Get t'New Orleans, den it up to you, dat.'

'We have no money, we've lost it all,' Pierre carped.

'Oh, here,' Balfa grudgingly said, pulling out his coin-purse and tossing the bulging sack over, pretending generosity. 'Dat get ya new kits, passage outta Looziann'. Don' worry 'bout payin' me back, chers. De least a capitaine can do for good hands, hein? Go on, now. Hug de right bank, t'rough dat op'nin' dere, see it? Right bank, all de way, an' don't go wand'rin' off in a coulee. Dey be 'Cadiens live 'long dere, dey steer ya right, feed ya an' put ya up 'til ya get back t'New Orleans, an' bonne chance, chers! Maybe we go sea-rovin' again, together. Never can tell!'

Pierre weighed the bag in his hand, couldn't see that Boudreaux Balfa had another on him, and decided to make the best of what little was left him. He motioned his younger brother, Jean, to join him in his boat, and they set off. Balfa bade the morose Mademoiselle Charite take the steering oar, and he sat beside his son on a rough thwart, an oar in his hoary hands. 'Let's row hard, now, Fusilier. All de way home, and say a strong prayer we get away wit' our lives, by Gar!'

'Sir! Sir!' Midshipman Larkin cried, hopping from one foot to another in excitement. 'There's a rowing boat out there, sir, off the larboard bows. They're not our people, sir!'

The damnable fog had not quite dissipated, but it had thinned considerably, now more a haze that hid the horizons. Lewrie put his telescope to his eye and swept the nearer waters. There were a lot of boats, most nigh-lost in the northern haze, some to the west… ah! That'un! Two men rowing, a lad and a gammer, one man with his hair bound back in a horse-tail steering with a sweep-oar… about two miles off and going strong.

Up to the Nor'east, Lewrie could almost make out a second boat with two men in it. 'Mister Jugg?' he called. 'Use my glass and tell me if you recognise anyone in these two boats nearest us.'

Jugg trotted up from his task of helping secure their prize and took a long gander with Lewrie's telescope. ' 'At 'un up in th' Nor'east, sor… don't think I know them fellers,' he said after a long moment. 'Left-hand'un, though… 'at's Boudreaux Balfa at 'er starboard oar, as big as life, sor! We goin' after 'em, Cap'm?' he eagerly asked.

Lewrie took his telescope back, extended the tubes to full magnification, and eyed the closest of his known foes. 'Damme!'

He grunted as if punched in the stomach as he recognised another person in Balfa's boat: Charite! She'd turned to peer astern anxiously and he spotted her long mane of chestnut hair, her soggy shirt plastered to womanly breasts. 'The murderin' bitch. Do we have a boat handy?' he loudly demanded, rounding to peer about the schooner's deck. 'We're off after 'em, if we have t'paddle logs!'

'Two, sir,' Midshipman Larkin responded. 'Our shalope's jolly boat, and… that,' he said, pointing over-side at a scrufulous pirogue tied up alongside their captured schooner's larboard chains.

'Cox'n Andrews! You, me, and four hands in the jolly boat, men who can row like Blazes!' Lewrie quickly decided. 'All to have muskets and cutlasses.' With the shore fight seemingly done, and Capt. Nicely in charge of that, there was nothing to deter him from wrapping things up, nabbing Balfa… and getting a personal matter finished. 'Mister Adair… take charge here 'til I get back. Send word ashore if you're able, and tell Captain Nicely where I've gone.'

'Aye, sir,' Lieutenant Adair crisply replied.

'Hands for the pirogue,' Lewrie bade to his crewmen. 'Any volunteers to…

'Me, sor,' Toby Jugg quickly spoke up. 'Sorta personal, like.' Lewrie looked him in the eyes for a moment, then nodded assent. Just 'cause he once knew the bastard…! Lewrie thought with a mental shrug as he headed for entry-port; no reason not to trust him. Jugg and his two almost inseparable mates, his fellow Irishmen Mannix and Dempsey, followed Jugg into the pirogue as Lewrie took charge of the tiller of his own rowboat. 'Shove off, out oars… and let's be after the bastard!' Lewrie urged his hands.

As their boats began to surge in pursuit, he did take a moment, though, to wonder if he could shoot a woman if he caught up with Charite.

'Dey gainin' on us,' Balfa muttered, arm muscles bulging as he dug deep with his oar, laying out almost prone at each stroke to sweep their boat faster; almost ruing that he'd rid himself of the La Fittes, now that they needed fresh, strong backs. 'Gonna cotch us… I think. Dat pirogue… she be… faster, her,' he grunted 'tween hard strokes. His tongue was about lolling out, and Fusilier's youthful power was nearly played out, too. The girl could steer adequately, but she'd not last five minutes on an oar. 'Mam'selle … dat rifle o' yours… you can use it, hein? You good shot?'